


The Remains of The Day in Switzerland

by silasfinch



Category: The Honourable Woman
Genre: F/F, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3212216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silasfinch/pseuds/silasfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 'missing scene' from Episode 8 - expanding on the conversation at the compound. </p>
<p>“I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?”<br/>― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Remains of The Day in Switzerland

**Author's Note:**

> I love this fandom and the relationship - its difficult to capture the tension and moral ambiguity but here is my first attempt.

**The Remains of The Day in Switzerland**

 

“I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?”

― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

 

“Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time / Into this breathing world, scarce half made up". Richard III William Shakespeare

+++++++++

 

"Collateral Damage. That's what my feelings were right?"

 

Atika took a long drag on her second cigarette - her eyes determinedly away from both Nessa's gaze and the photographic strip on the negative.

 

She was going to need plenty more to finish this conversation before they were both summoned.

 

"Mmmm?"

 

"I can understand the situation with Ephra of course, it couldn't be more clichéd or easy to accomplish. My brother always did have his weakness around impulse control but what possible value could my heart have? You had me and Kasim bound from the start. Was my desire just a bonus? An extra layer for the martyrdom?" Her tone is somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

 

These contrasting emotions were a permanent state for Nessa these days.

 

"I bet everybody was laughing when I 'begged' for your life. The pride of the Steins on her knees for henchmen, classic."

 

"Oh Nessa, you always take things so terribly personally."

 

"You could have released me in a thousand different ways. Invented a great love, claimed to have fallen for my brother in between meetings and negotiations, Would it have been that difficult to say 'I'm straight."

 

"None of this is a petty game Nessa. I had a duty that I have sworn my life to, and you were useful for a time - it was not my object to be cruel merely efficient by any means necessary. That is a notion for which you can have no concept - born to the station in which you live. In your world, cables make a fundamental difference because you haven't had to fight for dust in shifting sands. Missing the starting point was always your flaw. You and your brother believed we had the luxury of aspiration... Or the choice"

 

"A reality, begging to be detailed in countless history books, ethics classes and political satirists- you won't be alone in your judgement. It will probably justify the use of a moniker The Stein Folly. There is no need to recount the rivers of bloodshed alphabetically, Atika."

 

They were silent for several long minutes.

 

"Can you tell one thing?" Nessa asked finally keeping her eyes fixed above the other woman's head, studiously ignoring the blood that was pooling from several wounds. She worked to tune out the unmistakable sounds of armoured truck movement and the faint hails of bullets.

 

"Probably not."

 

"Oh, I know your dear leader will need to pontificate on the cause and my multitude of familial and personal sins. I am positive that your British cover will remain closely guarded as well the full extent of the hijacked network. This conversation means precisely nothing to your world at large or The Great Dream."

 

"Then why waste time on it now, Nessa?"

 

"Why are you here - you aren't exactly trumpeting your victory to the heavens. Shouldn't you be out celebrating the grand distraction or the return of Kasim to his rightful homeland?" Nessa responded with a politician's neutrality " I have no use anymore, and clearly you place such value on productivity and focus."

 

 

Atika shrugged dismissively but did not bother to refute the claim.

 

At this stage, the victory was still on a knife-edge.

 

Triumph felt strangely hollow.

 

"Did any of the last eight years mean anything to you? Did I?"

 

"What do you want me to say Barrenness Stein?"

 

"I have nothing left to lose except my life. My life will soon be forfeited one why or another if not physically then any way that matters. Call this request for Intel my version of dust in the quicksand. If you were entirely without compassion I, would have suffered 1000 little indignities by now. I'm sure there are orders to kept me in the state of relative health, but there are many ways around that injunction for ones that are motivated."

 

 

" I meant it when I said the world had determined my path long before this moment, that I had no choice whatever my desires. Caring and conspiring were not mutually exclusive for me. There were plenty of moments Nessa."

 

"I would have done anything to make you happy. Taken you anywhere. Hell, I practically admitted as much to your boss and mine."

 

"And you would have been the greater fool that your Shakespeare talks about so endlessly, and that is also why Ephra was never as dangerous as you. He never wanted me for anything bar the obvious intimacies. A greater kindness to you in the end I think"

 

Nessa snorted – the quality of mercy indeed.

 

"Are you Othello, Ophidia or Hamlet in this little piece?" they had spent an idle week discussing Shakespeare. Nessa had been equally amused and saddened by Atika’s cynical and cutting dismissals of the classic heroes and heroines.

 

Atika suddenly seemed very far away, and there was a slight tremble in her hands.

 

"Switzerland. I would have chosen Switzerland because Kasim loved his birthday in the Alps so much. He would have the loved to ski every day,” Atika whispered softly " if we were to run away and set up house that is where I would have chosen."

 

"I wasn't immune to you Nessa or your efforts to help, especially the woman, children and the maimed. They were far from enough, but they were real. You found solace in me, but I also found comfort in you. You were charming, bright and oh so open even after being brutalised and degraded. It was simply never going to be enough in the face of my duty and my loss or the needs of the millions of Gazans outside the reach of your carefully 'uncompromised' grants and foundation pathways."

 

Atika sighed gently and glanced at the older woman briefly.

 

"You were not my bonus Nessa. You were my burden. I took no particular delighted your feelings and meant it when I said you fruitlessly loved a rock in more ways than one. If I were anyone in literature I was Richard III bent and shaped by a single, unalterable reality

 

Nessa gave a brittle smile.

 

"And I, A village idiot but a noble one?"

 

"More like an idealist trapped in the world few understand with a large dose of Stockholm Syndrome thrown in for good measure" Atika corrected honestly  stubbing out her stub violently. "Helena most likely."

 

"You in the West are obsessed by dealing in abstractions and what might have been as if they were nursery stories meant for comfort. This fancy is something I can offer you. If things had been different, If I truly was a mere translator that lucked into philanthropic opportunity a woman who didn't know what I know. If Kasim had just been a regular child with no conflicted identity If the stars had aligned differently and you were one of the million other Steins in existence and not Eli Stein’s daughter. I could have and probably would have the loved you all the way to Switzerland and finally taught you how to make decent spiced kebab. I would have enjoyed kissing you every morning - listening to your never ending dreams."

 

Nessa lets out a trembling breath.

 

This speech was a hollow and cheap and something she would never have accepted in her previous life.

 

By her heart, was every bit as compromised as her geopolitics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
